PowerStop Z26 Street Warrior Brake Rotor and Pad Kit; Front and Rear (05-10 Mustang GT)

Video Review & Installation

Justin: If you're looking for an affordable yet potent breaking upgrade for your 2005 to 2010 GT at home, well, then you'll wanna consider the Street Warrior Z26 Kit from PowerStop that we have here today. Now, this particular option will include brand-new carbon ceramic pads, and drilled and slotted rotors for both the front and rear of the car, offered just south of the $400 price point.Install will be relatively straightforward, so let's call it a solid 2 out of 3 wrenches on the old difficulty meter here. And that is because there is a little bit of elbow grease involved to get everything in place, but I would say leave yourself a couple of hours from start to finish, and you should be good to go. So, for those wondering, PowerStop is a very popular option when it comes to affordable brake upgrades here on the site. And I like the fact that they give Mustang owners a few different flavors, if you will, when it comes to just how aggressive they wanna get. For instance, they have their extremely bare bones OE replacement kits here on the site, all the way down to their super-aggressive Track Day stuff, and really, everything in between.Now, the Z26 kit that we have here today will offer a pad that's gonna be one step below the Track Day option in regards to aggressiveness, while pairing it up with a brand-new set of drilled and slotted rotors for both the front and rear. But since this pad is a bit more unique to this kit, what do you say we talk about it first? Now, this is a carbon-ceramic option, guys. It's gonna have a little bit more bite than the Z23 kit also from PowerStop. And that Z23 option's gonna use a little bit more of a ceramic material as opposed to the carbon stuff that really tends to dominate this pad, if you will, making the Z26 option, again, a bit more aggressive.Now, PowerStop does claim that the Z26 pad that we have here, despite its aggressiveness and that more aggressive compound, will be both noise and dust-free, but it's been my experience, guys, with this particular kit, that you're gonna be looking at a little bit more of both when compared to just a straight-up OE or run-of-the-mill ceramic pad. Again, I do have this same exact kit on my S197. Stopping power is awesome, especially when paired up with the slotted and drilled rotors, but I do get a little bit more dust with the Z26. Noise is present when the pad is cold. Once you get a little bit of heat into 'em, they're really not that loud at all. But, honestly, guys, don't take my word for it. This is a great time to read up on some of those customer reviews if you haven't done so already. A lot of owners on the site with a lot of good stuff to say about this kit from PowerStop, including that big-time upgrade to the stopping power, which I've already attested to with this kit in place on my supercharged S197.But the Z26 pad is really only half of the equation here with the PowerStop kit. As you can see, you're also receiving a brand-new set of rotors for both the front and rears with this kit as well. Now, those rotors have been given both the slotted and drilled treatment, and that's done so to help combat any heat and fade, or at least try to help combat some of the extra heat and fade that comes when working the brakes a little hard, of course. And, as a byproduct, they look pretty cool behind your favorite set of wheels at the same time.Now, PowerStop does utilize a cast iron rotor here. These rotors have been mill-balanced, and rotor runout has been tested to be within OE spec, and that just means, guys, you shouldn't experience any nasty vibration or inconsistency with the rotors themselves after the install. Last but not least, you can see they have been given this silver-zinc plating on the rotors, and that's just to help prevent any unsightly surface rust or corrosion on non-friction surfaces over the years. Obviously, the friction area, that might get a little corrosion when the car's been sitting, but things like your hat area here, with that silver-zinc coating in place, should remain nice and bright and silver over the years.Now, I have mentioned this a few times. I wanna remind you guys again that the Z26 kit does include rotors and pads for both the front and rear, for right around that $400 price point, which, again, in my opinion, gonna be a really nice bang for your buck. Certainly more affordable compared to some of the big brake kit options that you might find here on the site from Brembo, Baer, Wilwood, stuff like that. Certainly, those kits are awesome. I'm not denying that. But if you're on a budget, you don't have thousands of dollars to spend for a set of aftermarket brakes, PowerStop kit will offer a nice increase in stopping power compared to some OE stuff. And again, they do look really sharp.But now let's shift gears and talk about the install, as mentioned earlier, guys. And while I would consider brakes to be wrenching 101, there is still a fair amount of work to get everything installed, get your stock stuff out of the way, of course. So you're gonna wanna leave yourself a couple of hours to knock this one out from start to finish in the driveway or garage. But to give you a better idea of just how things will go down on your S197 at home, feel free to check out our detailed walkthrough and tool breakdown now.Man: The tools you'll need for this project are a 1/2-inch impact gun, a 1/2-inch drive ratchet, a 15-millimeter socket, a swivel extension, a 3/8-drive ratchet, a 13-millimeter socket, a 12-millimeter socket, a front caliper spreader, a small flathead screwdriver, a rear caliper compression tool, a soft-blow hammer, some brake cleaner, a clean cloth, and a caliper hanging tool.Today we're installing a set of pads and rotors on the front and rear of our Mustang, so let's get started with the uninstall first. First thing we're gonna do is remove our caliper here. And there's two bolts that hold it in place onto the mounting bracket, so we're gonna use our 13-millimeter socket to remove those bolts. Now we can just slide the caliper out. And make sure that it's supported, so that we don't put any excess stress on the brake line. Now we can slide our pads out. And now we'll remove our caliper mounting bracket, using our 15-millimeter socket. We've got one bolt here at the top and one at the bottom, so we'll just go ahead and take those out now. Then slide our mounting bracket off. And then we can go ahead and just remove the rotor.Now we can remove the rear caliper, but very similar to the front, there's gonna be two bolts, one at the top, one at the bottom. We're gonna use our 13-millimeter socket to remove those bolts, slide the caliper out, and then hang it somewhere to keep the stress off of the brake hose. And we can just pull our caliper out, and pull out the pads if it comes with it. And we'll just support that up here. Pull out the other pad. Now we can remove our caliper mounting bracket, using 15-millimeter sockets on the two bolts behind there.Now, it's a little difficult to get our camera in here to give you a shot of the bolts in the back, but you'll be able to see them once you actually look at them. There's one right here at the top, and another here at the bottom. So, we're just gonna take those off with our 15-millimeter socket. Now, you may have a situation like what we have here where there's a spring clip that holds the rotor onto the axle. So, to remove that, we're just gonna use a pair of snips and pull that off. We can just get this in here. They can be a little difficult sometimes, so you just have to kinda work it off till you get it to a point where it actually breaks. Now, depending upon the condition of your rear rotors here, you may need to use a dead blow hammer in order to bang that off and break it free from all the rust around the edges. All right. So, we finally got it off. Now, of course, what we'll do is we'll get, like, a Scotch-Brite pad to go around the edge here and kinda clean that up, so that we don't have this problem when we put our new ones on.Now, before we actually get to the actual install of our new components, there's a couple things that we need to take care of first. One is replacing the anti-rattle clips that are inside the caliper mounting brackets on the front and on the rear. These are the anti-rattle clips to go for the front. And to replace them, all you have to do is to use a small flathead screwdriver and just pry that away, and the spring will pop right out. And then we can just push the new ones in, like so. Just make sure that they're locked in place. And that'll take care of the front. And for the rear, it is pretty much the same thing. They're just a one-piece for that. And we're ready to go.Now, because the new brakes are gonna have a thicker rotor and thicker pads than what you're taking off, you're gonna need something like a caliper spreader here to go ahead and insert here and push the pistons back into the caliper, so that we can have room to install them on the new rotor. To do that, you place the caliper spreader inside here, making sure to cover both pistons, and then just slowly squeeze the handle, making sure that both pistons are covered. And like I say, just squeeze the handle slowly until both pistons are completely seated back inside the caliper. Once that's done, you can remove it, and then we'll install our new rotor, and the caliper mounting bracket, to move on.And before you mount the new rotors, it's always a good idea to use some brake cleaner, spray it on there, and then wipe it down with a clean cloth, just to make sure that we remove any manufacturing chemicals and residue that may have been on the rotor. And of course, you wanna make sure that you get both sides as well. Now we can go ahead and put our new rotor back on the spindle, and reinstall the mounting bracket, using the original hardware.Now, before we put our new pads in, it's always a good idea to lubricate your slide pins right here and here. To do that, we're simply just gonna slide 'em out, using the supplied grease that comes with it, and just put a little bit on the pin itself, make sure it's well-lubricated, and then slide it back in. Make sure that the rubber seal goes over the end of the mounting bracket. Now, it doesn't take a whole lot of grease on here, so you'll have plenty left over. All right. Just make sure everything moves smoothly, and then we can go ahead and install our new pads. Now we can go ahead and slide our new pads in. And now we're ready to slide our caliper over the top, then we'll reattach that using the original hardware. And now you can go ahead and repeat that process for the other side.All right. So, just like our front rotor, we're gonna wanna spray this down with some brake cleaner, and wipe it off to make sure we remove all the residue from manufacturing. All right. And also, like the front, we're gonna have to compress this piston in the rear caliper, but it's gonna use a different tool that you can rent usually at most auto parts stores. The way that this one works is you got a little disc like this, with two pegs on it. They're gonna go into the slots here in the piston caliper, in the piston right here. So, we'll just put that inside. And then it's got this plate that goes over the tool. And you've got two pegs on here as well. They're gonna go into the other two holes on that disc. And this plate goes on the other side of the caliper. Then you're just gonna back this off until that plate catches the outside part of the caliper here. Make sure that it's snug. And then you're just gonna twist the handle, and push that caliper back inside.All right. And just like the front, put a little grease on these glide pins, just to make sure that they keep moving the way that they should. And just put 'em back in, make sure that the rubber seal snaps on the caliper mounting bracket. And then we can go ahead and install our rotor and our caliper mounting bracket, using the original hardware. And we'll tighten those down using our 15-millimeter socket. Now we can go ahead and slide our shoes in, making sure that our retaining springs are facing up, like so. Then we can slide our caliper over the pads, and attach it using the original hardware. And we'll tighten them down using our 13-millimeter socket. Now you can repeat that whole process for the other side. And remember, when you tighten everything down, make sure you torque it down to factory recommended specification.And that wraps up our review and install of the PowerStop Z26 Street Warrior Brake Rotor and Pad Kit for the front and rear of the '05 to '10 Mustang GT. Thanks for watching, and remember, for all things Mustang, keep it right here at americanmuscle.com.